A Possibility
by one.twilight.sun
Summary: A little story of what happens when two young people can't admit their feelings for each other...and the rest of the crew get tired of waiting.
1. Chapter One

_Author's Note: _

_Jumping onto the Icheb/Naomi bandwagon! My husband just got me all 7 seasons of ST:V on DVD! Yay! _

_OK, first attempt at present tense first person. Bear with me. _

_(And layafel, if you read this, just so I don't feel guilty, I just want to say that I __**will**__ get back to Sarra and Weiryn. Just a bit blocked on that right now __)_

**A Possibility**

Fine strands of strawberry blond hair fall into my eyes as I stretch further into my closet, my fingertips just brushing the damn duffle bag that I have somehow managed to store away in the least accessible space of my dorm. My feet almost slip on the chair I am using as a ladder and in trying to compensate, I lose my balance altogether and land, gracelessly but thankfully, on my bed. I just lay there. Overwhelmed.

God! I've been trying to pack for the last leave I'll get before my last term in the Academy and literally everything has been going wrong. First, my roommate came home last night in tears after she found out that creepy Krespin was cheating on her, then, after handling that whole thing last night, this morning Captain Chakotay sends a communiqué that my parents won't be able to meet me at HQ and I'll have to make my way to _Voyager _with one of the family on Earth. And now, I can't even pack. My exasperated and inarticulate expletive is answered by a deep male chuckle from my doorway. My hands fall away from my face and I prop myself up to take in a very amused Icheb standing there.

"Icheb!" I bounce up from the bed to hug him. I haven't seen him in over two years since he earned his commission to go on a deep space mission. Although why he was willing to be gone from home for so long is beyond me. Most of us tend to stick closer to home base, so to speak. But I guess, not really being from this quadrant could mean his ties weren't as tight. Why that thought slightly hurt, I didn't want to look at too closely.

For now, it is enough that he is here. My arms are around his neck, my toes barely touching the ground as his own arms come around me. He is over six feet now, almost a giant of a man, compared to the skinny teenage self I met almost 15 years ago. I missed him so much.

I turn my nose into his neck and give him a good sniff. "Whoa, Naomi!" he laughs and sets me a little apart from him. His warm eyes are taking me in, though there's a flash of something that sets my heart racing and his hands move up from my arms to my shoulders, sending a rush of excitement through me. I'm not entirely sure what all this is and then it's gone.

I feel unsettled. This is Icheb. He was the only person closest in age to me for so long and my rock in the excitement of coming back to the Alpha Quadrant, the debriefings, the dispersal of the only family I had ever known, the introduction to a father I hadn't met and the adjustment of living somewhere besides _Voyager_. His big hands are still on my shoulders, the warmth of them seeping into me. I smile up at him, wanting to cover up what is becoming an awkward moment and I'm beginning to suspect why that is. "What? Your sense of smell is one of the main perceptions that stimulate one's memory. I just wanted to make sure I hadn't forgotten you."

He gives his quiet Icheb laugh and shakes his head. His eyes move past me to take in the clothes on my bed and the general disarray of my quarters. "Still packing? You know our transport leaves in 15 minutes." He already is moving towards the fallen duffle bag and picks it up, placing it next to the pile on the bed. He methodically picks up the first piece of clothing and folds it neatly before sticking it in the bag.

The next article he selects, seemingly at random, is a pair of lacy red panties that I bought on a wild shopping spree a few months ago. His hand pauses in lifting it and I can feel my face flame as I fixate onto that scarlet piece of cloth while his dark eyes stare at me. I rush forward to jerkily grab it out of his hold and stuff it into the duffle bag. "Th-thanks, Icheb, but I think I can take over from here," I mumble as I angle the bag away from him and frantically pack.

I can't look at him and he just stands there. The man's practically a heater, the amount of body heat that is coming from him. And I can't seem to get my body to cool down. My frenzied movements are probably not helping.

After a few moments of silence, where the tension in the room has increased to the point that if I'd been a plasma manifold, I'd be leaking right now, Icheb speaks, tentatively. "Naomi…" I glance up at him and am arrested by the look in his eye, the one that had flashed briefly when he'd first come in. He doesn't say anything more but moves one hand upward as if to touch my face before he drops it and leans forward in slow increments towards me.

Oh my god, he's going to kiss me. Icheb. OK, I have to admit something here. I've held a torch for this guy for what seems like eons and not once has he showed any interest other than brotherly love for me. When he started dating when I was only 10 years old, I had been devastated. My mother and Seven, who'd become surrogate mother to Icheb, had been unable to console me for weeks. Then when I'd finally grown up enough to start garnering interest from boys, Icheb seemed to still see me as the 6 year old he'd met back in the Delta Quadrant. Not once, in all my girlish attempts at seduction—the flattering dresses, the loud recountings of my dates, the not-so-innocent-or-accidental brushes against him—had he reacted in any way that I wanted: no desire touched his brown eyes, no declarations of undying love, nada.

But now, in a completely unlikely moment, here was this beautiful man, with all that delicious heat and _that _look in his eyes, about to kiss me!

My eyes drift close on their own volition and I'm breathless with anticipation. I'm getting a tingle that starts at my toes and moves up to the top of my head. I feel electric. I feel like I'm in a cluster of wormholes where I can go anywhere I want in the galaxy and all I have to do to is move forward. I feel—

Unfulfilled.

Nothing has happened. I slowly open my eyes to find Icheb has turned away and is poking at the PADDs on my desk while I was standing there with my eyes closed like an idiot. Well. I'm beyond embarrassed. I wish that a portal would open up into the realm of Species 8472 so I can step through and die a horrible death.

He looks up and gives me a small uncomfortable smile. "I guess I'll leave you to packing then? Since you have it under control?"

I turn away to dejectedly put the rest of my things away as he moved back to the door. "Yeah." I don't look at him as he steps out.

I had always thought it was a possibility. Icheb and Naomi. But this, I don't know what to make of it.

* * *

Naomi. What had happened? Before walking into her room today, she'd been a little sister in my mind's eye, an innocent.

Then she'd wrapped her arms around me and brought her soft lithe body against mine and all the brotherly affection I'd had for her flew out the airlock, sucked into the vacuum of space, never to be seen again. Sure I had been eager to see her after so long away but this, this feeling, this _desire _had not been what I had been in anticipation of. Had I?

Then I had almost kissed her when she'd looked up at me with her big bright eyes, embarrassed over a scandalous piece of clothing. What was wrong with me? I was having the hardest time keeping my hands to myself and so I left before all sense of decency left me.

I stand outside her dorm and try to calm myself. This is something that has never entered my thoughts until now. Naomi and Icheb. A possibility?


	2. Chapter Two

**A Possibility – Chapter Two**

This transport ride is uncomfortable to say the least.

After I was done packing, Icheb met me outside the door and took my bag without comment and we walked in silence to the transport station. Rather than awkwardly standing there not speaking, I'd found some of my friends who were heading out in different directions from Icheb and I and said good-bye to them. We were all in our last term and excited about this last vacation before the finals.

One of those friends was Rikash, who'd taken me under his wing when I first came to the Academy. Second to Icheb, he was someone I knew I could always count on. While I gave him a good-bye hug, I swore I heard something like a growl from Icheb but when I'd pulled away from Rikash to look at him, his attention had been on something happening on the opposite end of the station.

After giving Icheb a strange look, I finish my good-byes and we wait for the transport to arrive, feeling the distance between us acutely. As soon as we board the transport, I find a seat instantly near one of the windows and Icheb hesitantly follows behind and sits in a seat one away from me, carefully setting my bag between us. I ignore him.

And the sudden catch in my throat.

And the stupid tears in my eyes.

I'm pretty sure he knows now that I like him but he hasn't said anything and I'm not going to embarrass myself further by bringing it up. He can think what he wants and hopefully I eventually get over it.

The small transport launches and I watch as San Francisco shrinks away and gets lost under swirling clouds. I feel a sense of release as the ship bursts through Earth's atmosphere and the blackness of space and the stars beyond are revealed to me. I love being in the window seat, able to see where I'm going and the galaxies out there. Maybe it's because I was a space baby but I feel more at home on a ship than I do on land.

I'm so happy to be back in space and heading to my real home that the annoyance and embarrassment I've been feeling melts away and I turn to Icheb with a smile on my face, willing to let whatever has been happening to be relegated to the background. My resolve to do this is a bit shaken as I meet his dark eyes which apparently have been staring at me as I was absorbed with the view outside.

My heart is in my throat and there's a tightness around my chest that constricts my breathing as we just look at each other. It's like that nanosecond between transportations, when you're de-molecularized into the transporter pattern buffers and have that thought way in the back of your mind that you never remember once you appear on the transporter pad but it's still there: it's that thought, that feeling of you'll be changed forever in some way when you reappear, some piece of you will be left behind or you'll have something new added to you.

That's how I feel right now. I feel like something will be irrevocably altered.

A memory, unbidden, comes to mind. Icheb and I are sitting on the floor of Cargo Bay Two, putting together a puzzle he designed to help me learn some science thing. I'm still not sure what happened—other than the fact it had to do with a temporal occurrence that Chakotay never spoke about—but I remember sitting there and suddenly seeing a version of Icheb's face, almost how he looks now, superimposed over his younger self. This version looked at me with an expression that I didn't understand as a small child and then it was gone and it was just determined Icheb, trying to get a six-year-old to understand basic physics.

I'd never really inspected this memory from an older perspective and now I understood that that older version I'd seen for a brief moment was an Icheb who had loved someone—me, I guess, as that was who he'd been looking at. That little flame of hope that had died back in my dorm comes back to life.

He opens his mouth to break the silence—and is interrupted by the computer: "Runabout _Lexur _has arrived at Mars Station. Passengers are to exit through the indicated doors."

The moment is lost. He looks away and doesn't say anything as he picks up my bag and heads for the exit. I want to grab him and shake whatever it was he was about to say out of him, but I'm stopped by some squealing and happy cheering from outside the ship doors where Icheb just left. I smile despite my frustration. It's the Paris kids.

I'm ambushed as soon as I step outside the transport by brunette and tow-headed midgets all shouting different variations of my name. More specifically it's Frankie, Tommy and Sierra, the younger of the Paris kids. Miral, the eldest at only fourteen years old, is hanging back but still looking excited at seeing Icheb and I. I hug each of them in turn and pick up the youngest, To'Mar (better known as Tommy). The three-year-old wraps his chubby arms around me and I can feel the small ridges on his forehead as he rubs his head affectionately against my neck.

"Mom and Dad said that we could meet you in the station and bring you back to _Voyager_!" beams Frankie proudly; he's the second oldest of the Paris brood at ten years old.

I give the small group as good of a curtsy as I can with the baby around my neck. It's an ancient Earth custom I've come across in random holonovels. I glance at Icheb at the corner of my eye. He's grinning at the display. I'm relieved that there's still easiness between us after the recent tension. "We would be happy to accept your escort. Please, lead the way!" I declare magnanimously as I take Frankie's hand while I watch as Icheb holds out an arm for Miral (I can see someone else has come across those same holonovels) and takes five-year-old Sierra's hand.

We parade through the corridors of Mars Station to where _Voyager _is docked. The crew of the station and the other visitors smile at the display we make. The Parises are a loud bunch, coming from outspoken and not-afraid-to-show-it parents. But Icheb and I are used to their chatter and join in ourselves. As we finally reach the doors that will lead us to Voyager, we're laughing and singing a song Sierra just learned from a children's holoprogram.

When I see who's waiting for us at the entrance, I disentangle myself from Tommy and drop him into Miral's arms as I run to greet my parents. My mom works with my father now as a Starfleet Ambassador to the Ktarians. After the hugging is over, my mom takes a good look at me and her blue eyes flick to Icheb. I'm wigged out by that look and then it's gone. God, this day is just weird. I'd almost put it down to an alien influence if the possibilities of what all these looks and nearly spoken words were leading to weren't so tantalizing.

"Sorry we didn't get you, honey, but we figured Icheb would be a nice surprise," my dad says as he puts his arms around me. I close my eyes as I lean into him and take in his familiar smell and feel. Even though I lived without him for the first six years of my life, I couldn't imagine being without him now. He was instrumental into getting me into the Academy, supporting me when I decided to go into that still barely explored field of temporal physics and he's just plain awesome as a dad. I smile up at him, thinking all of this and he smiles back and rubs his hand down my hair tenderly.

As I pull away from him, I see that Seven is also there, in her gray and blue science uniform, greeting Icheb affectionately, who towers over her now. I make my way over to her and give her a hug. The awkwardness she used to have with close contact situations is gone and she's just as giving in her embrace. She greets me with her familiar "Naomi Wildman!" and sets me apart from her only to also give that flick of a glance at Icheb. What is up with this? I stare at her for a second, follow her glance to Icheb who is busy disentangling Sierra and Tommy from his legs. I look back at her, determined to get some explanation of what is happening when my mom charges in.

"Naomi!" she grabs my arm. I'm sure this is a coordinated stall tactic but I'm overruled as she turns me down a corridor. "We have to get you settled in your quarters so you can get ready for the reunion tonight!" I let her pull me away and see that my dad has my bag now and is following.

Icheb throws me _another_ unreadable look and heads in the opposite direction down the corridor, presumably to go to his own quarters. I can feel my frustration starting to mutate into a redhead's temper. I'll get answers to all this very soon or I'll pull a B'Elanna and punch someone.

* * *

After dressing for the reunion, I sit in one of the chairs of my temporary quarters, finally giving in to the thoughts that had been at the back of my mind for the past hour. It had happened again. On the transport. I had opened my mouth to tell her—I don't even know what it was that I was going to tell her—when the ship had docked and saved me. Or maybe "saved" wasn't the right word. I had felt rather disappointed.

Bringing my hands up to my head I put pressure there, hoping that this will relieve the turmoil inside. Maybe it's time that I come to terms with what I've been struggling against for the past two years. I can still remember the exact moment when I knew I had to get a way from Naomi or have something happen between us that I didn't think she or I was ready for.

We had both had some time off, her from the Academy and me from an engineering project just completed at Headquarters. We were sitting in our favorite café in downtown San Francisco, talking over inconsequential things when something happened—the sunlight shifted to highlight her hair, she tilted her head a certain way, my nanoprobes regenerated a lost part of my heart, I don't know—but I suddenly saw Naomi in a new light. Maybe it had been happening over a period of time and I had just been in denial but I knew then that I _wanted_ Naomi, I desired her, I had an emotion towards her that most definitely wasn't brotherly.

And I panicked.

I know. Me. The Brunali who was genetically altered to introduce a virus into the daunting Borg Collective only to be assimilated then eventually freed from the Collective to become a valued member of an extraordinary Starfleet crew who survived the wilderness known as the Delta Quadrant and who then traveled with them over half the galaxy to make a home on a planet he hadn't been born to. But this terra incognita of emotion, of deep connection, was largely unexplored and I hadn't felt at all ready to forge ahead.

So I took the cowardly way out by going on a deep space mission for two years. It had been the only solution I could think of to maintain distance between us. She was so young and I'd practically been her sibling her entire life. I didn't want her to mistake her companionable feelings of affection for something more and then have the infatuation wear off and leave both of us unhappy and no longer friends.

Somehow, I'd been able to convince myself that all I felt for this girl was the platonic love of good friends and nothing more. Except every once in a while, I'd get a letter filled with explosive excitement over various adventures she was having in her training and studies and she'd say she missed me and I would have to struggle to clamp down on my longing for her, my wish to be by her side, the only place I ever felt I _belonged_.

When I'd come back from the assignment, I'd gone to _Voyager _where the yearly reunion was to take place. The first people I'd seen who I felt close to had been Naomi's parents and I hadn't been able to stop myself from asking about her. I think that they sensed some of what I had been trying to push back as Samantha had given me her quiet smile and looked at her husband who'd nodded in return and I'd been asked to get Naomi on Earth. A bit embarrassed, I'd accepted because I honestly couldn't wait to see her—even with my recent turmoil, she was still my best friend.

Now, being faced with how much inner lying I'd been doing, I didn't know what to do with myself or these feelings. It's not like I could just jump her after being away for two years. She probably had a boyfriend like that skinny blond guy who was all over her at the transport station. I mean, what was that red lingerie stuff?

I run my hands down my face, trying to center myself. Okay, maybe she does have someone else so I'll just keep it to myself. Painful as that may be.

A memory of her expression on the way over to Mars Station comes back to mind. Her blue eyes open in wonder as the ship leaves Earth's atmosphere and the galaxy opens up to her, her lips moving into a wide smile, her face transforming from pretty to downright gorgeous and I remember the feeling that came over me at that time. I'd been struck speechless and realized that I _loved_ this girl, this woman I'd known for half my life.

Yeah, this is something I'm not going to be able to keep to myself.


	3. Chapter Three

**Chapter Three**

I am a coward. I'm right up there with the Ferengi and the Omik, who play dead rather than risk a confrontation of any kind. It's a bit disturbing when you're confronted with one of their kind as it honestly seems like they _have_ died in front of you, even by tricorder readings. Except for faint cellular activity that—

Anyway. Why I say I'm a coward is because I've been at this reunion party for almost an hour and have yet to say more than "Hello" to the girl of my dreams. I'd come out of my quarters, filled with courage, boldly going where no ex-Borg Brunali had ever gone before. Then I'd walked into the mess hall and seen all the familiar faces: Chakotay, Kathryn Janeway, the Doctor, Tom and B'Elanna, Harry, Tuvok, Seven and the Wildmans—all the people who were essentially my family in the truest sense of the word—and I'd gotten cold feet.

The thought of revealing emotions so private in a place that was so public was too much for me to take. I'd felt overwhelmed. Truly, there's nothing like coming home to family that makes you feel young and inexperienced again. It also hadn't helped that the first person to come greet me was Naomi herself. Her blue eyes had been sparkling and happy, matching the smile on that mouth I'd begun fantasizing over. She'd approached me and I'd blurted out a spastic greeting and a mumbled excuse of needing to see Tuvok—thinking a good dose of logic would help—and made my way over to the Vulcan, just avoiding her outstretched hand.

I know she'd been hurt and I cursed myself a thousand different ways as I greeted the stoic figure of Tuvok. He'd raised an eyebrow at me, no doubt having observed the exchange. I kept my face straight and ignored the eyebrow. Tuvok had gone back to teach at the Academy, one semester a year while spending the rest of the time on Vulcan, working with the elders there and spending time with his family. Like the rest of us, he did not stray too far from home. With the exception of my two-year avoidance of Naomi.

After conversing with him a bit, catching up, I'd spoken to the rest of my friends, somehow staying away from wherever Naomi ended up being without making it obvious I was evading her. Or so I thought.

"Did you and Naomi have a fight?" the Doctor asks kindly. I look at him in alarm. Well, hopefully I don't _look_ alarmed but I certainly feel it.

"No, why do you ask?"

"You keep not looking at her."

The strangeness of this statement jolts a nervous chuckle out of me, enabling me to say with feigned lightness, "We're fine, Doctor. I've just gotten back from my deep space assignment and I'm still getting back in touch with everyone, in the flesh, or photons, so to speak." I give him a smile, hoping he'll get my telepathic communication to let it alone.

He smiles and nods his head at me and I feel relief. The Doctor, otherwise known as Cyril Ahrd (a name chosen at random after all those years), is the Commissioner of Starfleet Medical and an invaluable fighter for hologram rights, a figurehead of the movement. Surprisingly, at least to him, not really to the rest of us, Seven of Nine had pursued him, after ending her relationship with Chakotay, and now they were engaged to be married. While he has been a true friend, I'm still not ready to talk about this new aspect of my regard for Naomi.

"Icheb!" I hear my name called and turn, meeting Chakotay's friendly gaze. He waves me over while saying a quick word to his wife, Kathryn Janeway, before stepping away to meet me halfway. The ease of their deep affection for each other is evident for others to see and I find myself wondering what that would be like for me…and a certain someone.

It was years, even after we got back to Earth, before Kathryn and Chakotay had finally acted on the feelings that everyone else on the ship, even a newcomer like me, had sensed. I think we'd all lost hope when we found out that the inimitable Captain turned Admiral Janeway had retired from Starfleet and gone to live in obscurity.

As I meet Chakotay near the windows where he is standing, he puts a large hand on my shoulder and leans in. I automatically copy his action, seeing as how this seems quite clandestine. He even glances around furtively. I suppress a grin. His grave eyes return to me, and I wonder if I was making light of something serious.

"Remember, years ago, when I interrupted a puzzle lesson you were doing with Naomi?"

The name almost causes me to start. I hold myself in check and nod.

"And I was in there to get a bottle of Antarian cider that I was hiding from Neelix, right?" I nod again. I finally notice the twinkle in his eye and smile conspiratorially back. "Well, I have one last bottle that I think today's toast would be an appropriate time to bring out. I'd like to surprise Kathryn so while I keep her distracted up here, could you grab it from the back containers in Cargo Bay Two?"

"Sure thing, Captain." I know I'm smiling like an idiot but it's always fun to have a secret or two with your former commander. As I turn to head out the mess hall doors, I catch a glimpse of Naomi's profile as she's talking to Kathryn. Her head turns to look in my direction as if she senses my gaze. Looking away before she can catch me, I exit the party. At least, this will give me some time to reflect on my abysmal way of letting Naomi know that I love her.

* * *

I feel like he's been staring at me the entire evening but every time I've turned around, he's been looking the other way. I know I'm on yellow alert, but the unspoken words of the day have been getting to me. While I've been trying to be in the moment and stay focused on what my friends and family have been talking to me about, it's been hard, what with having holes phasered in the back of my head by a pair of brown eyes. But not only that, he hasn't talked to me once since the mumbling of needing to see Tuvok. As if. I restrain the urge to roll my eyes.

I feel an insistent tug on my hand and look down. "Nomi!" I'm greeted with complete enthusiasm by little Izzy, who hasn't quite gotten the hang of my name yet.

Smiling, I reach down and pick her up, to bring her small face to my height. Her hair is like her father's once was-jet black-but her face is all Kathryn, including sharp intelligent blue eyes. Chakotay and Kathryn had tried for a few years to have a child and finally succeeded through external embryo fertilization. While Isidore might have been a test-tube baby, she was still theirs and well loved. She was at the age which would normally be considered the "terrible two's" except for the fact that she was the sweetest little girl that ever existed.

"Hey, princess!" I give her a smacking kiss on her cheek. She giggles and brings her chubby hands up to my face to give me a squeeze. "Where's your mommy?"

She twists her upper body around to point behind her and I see Kathryn standing there with her arms on her hips, giving me and her daughter a wide smile. I also see Icheb and Chakotay looking dodgy in a corner near the window. I ignore the sight as I walk over to my former Captain, handing her child back to her. Kathryn takes Izzy and brings a hand up to my face to gently touch it. "Look at _Voyager_'_s _first child: all grown up now," she says affectionately.

I get a little choked up at this and I can see understanding in her eyes. She asks me about my studies in the Academy and I fill her in. We're interrupted by a small voice, "Ma'am?" We both look down to see Frankie who's holding fair-haired Sierra by one hand, while she has the thumb of her other hand in her mouth, a habit she has yet to grow out of.

Kathryn smiles, "I would know you were Tom's boy just by looking at you, but that 'ma'am' makes it official." She bends down so that she and Izzy are at eye level with the two children. "What can I do for you?"

Frankie looks at Sierra who gives his hand a small tug. "Sierra wanted to know if Izzy could play with us 'cause Mommy let us bring some of our toys and games over and we thought she'd like them. And Uncle Harry already let Benji come," he adds definitively, as if he's giving extra credentials to his suggestion.

Kathryn straightens up and glances at me, then something over my shoulder. "Naomi, it looks like Seven needs a hand over there so I'll take this little Indian to the rest of the tribe." The children erupt into excited yips with Izzy making some sort of yell that sounded like a Native American call.

Grinning, I turn to find Seven behind the counter in the galley, motioning for me to come over. Making my way over there, I give a surreptitious glance around. He's not here anymore. I feel disappointment come over me but also a strange sense of relief. While I find this exciting and all, I don't know if I'm quite ready for the fruition of my dreams. _If _that's what this all even means.

"Hey, Seven," I greet her. She's preparing petits fours, small tarts with fruit and crème in the middle, her deft hands, minus her former Borg implants, moving swiftly over each empty crust.

She pauses to smile at me. "I am running a little behind on these desserts for the toast and I have been unable to break away to get the beverage we will be using. I thought it would be efficient if I enlisted your help on this."

"Sure, what do I do?" I gesture towards the array of fruit and other pastry-type tools in evidence.

"Oh, not this. Would you be able to grab a bottle of cider that's stored in the back containers of Cargo Bay Two?" I'm a little startled by this request. I'd just been thinking about that time when some temporal incident had taken place when I was a child. Chakotay had gone into Cargo Bay Two to get a bottle of cider just before I'd seen the older Icheb face. "Naomi?" Seven asks, bringing me back to the present.

I realize I've been staring at her. I smile in apology. "Of course. I'll go now."

As I travel the turbolift and the corridors to get to Cargo Bay Two, I reflect over this past memory that keeps coming to mind. It seems so significant to my life today. Maybe it's because I haven't seen Icheb in a couple years or the nostalgic feeling of coming home but my crush on this guy has evolved. I'd thought myself in love before he went away but over the past two years, we'd exchanged messages and letters and I felt like the distance made it real to me how much Icheb really meant to me.

Being so caught up in my thoughts, I almost don't see Harry until he appears in front of me, just outside the doors of the cargo bay. I'm startled and can't suppress the gasp that escapes. Harry holds up his hands, "Sorry, Naomi. Didn't mean to startle you."

"It's okay. I wasn't really paying attention where I was going." I give him a wry grin. "I think that if you hadn't stopped me, I'd probably have gone past where I needed to go," indicating the doorway.

"Right." He runs a hand through his thick salt and pepper hair. "So, you're getting the cider aren't you?" he asks.

For some reason I feel that his question is less than innocuous. "Yes…"

He smiles, seemingly innocent, and gestures for me to go through the doors. I give him a suspicious look and move past him and through the doors. Still distracted by the strangeness of Harry's actions, I don't notice that there's someone else in the room until I'm halfway across the room.

"Oh!" At my sharp intake of breath, the figure rummaging in the containers straightens up. Holy…it's Icheb. His dark eyes meet mine and I'm stopped in my tracks. There's an instant connection and that feeling of thousands of wormholes opening up, of a supernova explosion, of stepping onto an unexplored world all comes back. The air is sucked out of the room and it's just the two of us in our own continuum. He takes a small step forward.

And suddenly, I know I'm not ready for this, it's something beyond my comprehension and I don't know if I want to face it just yet.

Turning, I walk swiftly to the entrance but the doors won't open. I hit the keypad next to it and still no response. I drop my hand and stare blindly at the door, trying to keep myself from hyperventilating. I can feel he's moved closer, not quite right behind me but close enough for me to feel him.

"I love you."

I whirl around. My shocked gaze meets his. His mouth is open in surprise and his face flushes. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say that—I mean—I _did_ mean to—but not—" he trails off on a strangled sound and looks away from me, one hand going up to the back of his neck as if he was trying to get himself in line. I've never seen him so flustered.

My heart, which had stopped at his first words, has begun beating again. Okay, maybe I am ready for this. My world feels completely tilted on its axis but at the same time I feel grounded and certain about where I'm going. I can feel a warm glow come over me and I step forward so that I'm directly in front of him. He looks down at me, his eyes wide. I smile up at him.

"I love you, too." His eyes light up and his arms come around me and I'm enveloped in warmth. Our faces are millimeters apart, his breath brushes my lips. Then slowly, his lips meet mine. It's not a passionate kiss, all rushed and desperate. It's like a poem, a song of coming home, finding your place in life. It's simply glorious.

* * *

"You think we should check on them? Make sure they can actually get out of the cargo bay?" asks Tom as he passes the glasses filled with Antarian cider, taken from the last bottle that Chakotay had hidden in the galley, to the rest of the family who now gathered in the chairs and sofas near the mess hall windows.

With the children playing at the opposite end of the room, the adults are able to meet and toast their devious hand in the shaping of the lives of the younger generation. They look at each other, conspiratorial smiles on their faces. With a grin on her face, Kathryn speaks for all of them: "I think not."

They all laugh, amused at the lengths they had to go to for Naomi and Icheb to finally admit their feelings for each other.

"To old friends and new beginnings." Chakotay raises his glass.

The others follow suit, "To new beginnings."

_**The End.**_

* * *

_Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who has read the story! If you reviewed, I LOVE YOU! And if you didn't, you're OK. :P_

_This was a fun story to write. I'd like to hear what you thought about it. (HINT HINT)_


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